


diphthong

by kalypsobean



Category: My Fair Lady (1964)
Genre: Gen, Manipulation, Period-Typical Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 08:59:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17040752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: "If all she is to be is a pet, Henry, then spare the poor girl and get yourself a dog," his mother had said, before uninviting him to tea and issuing Eliza her own formal invitation, delivered by a page clearly unused to the role.





	diphthong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MasterOfAllImagination](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterOfAllImagination/gifts).



The problem, Eliza thought (though sometimes she supposed that she might not be meant to have thoughts) was simply that she had nothing to _do_. She had thought simply to become a lady in a flower shop and that all she needed was to be able to speak just that little bit more politely, more genteel. The rest would have come with a steady wage, an amount of money that now seemed laughably small, though much of its value would have been in that it could be relied on.

 

Though it had been what she asked for, she felt no closer to being able to imagine it as she had been then. It still felt as if a half-formed dream, though it was due to a much different circumstance. She could now no more easily picture returning to her old life, not now that her place had been taken by one just like her, identical in form if not upbringing and the exact location of her dwellings. Then it had been that she could never look so neat like that, or speak just so, and unable to overcome that first impression even had she washed and had a Sunday best to don and adorn. Now it simply felt wrong - not a waste, exactly, but it felt too small, something indefinably lesser than she wanted - and it would still be a cage, placing limitations on her that fit so narrowly there would be another dream just out of reach, that of of being a secretary, or a lady-in-waiting, or a governess, or a companion ladies' maid. Eliza knew (and she supposed she was allowed to know, for Professor Higgins had presented it to her as a fact just as immutable as those Godforsaken Spanish rains) that there would be no going back without the rearing of that same very restlessness that had brought her here and carried her past anywhere else she could think of to go.

 

Of course, her allowance allowed her to purchase her own flowers; it was a concession made out of guilt or perhaps an obligation, some societal nicety she did not care to understand. There was some pleasure in that; the house had one thing that was hers, that Professor Higgins didn't find some way to take away or alter or twist to his own ends. It was pleasing to walk into stores that had turned her away and speak the names of flowers as she had imagined doing, though of course she left with her arms full and her purse lighter instead of the other way around. She had even been invited to show the ladies of Mrs Higgins' particular acquaintance how to arrange centrepieces, and for just that one afternoon felt less like an outsider looking in, or a curiosity to be marvelled over and discarded. It was just one afternoon, however, and there were many like it to fill. It was in the trying that she had become so painfully aware that even though she was indulged with arranging the flowers, she should leave the caring of them to the servants, and there was not much else she could do without crossing some other line and feeling as if she herself should wear an apron and blend in, becoming as invisible as it seemed was now her lot. It had been difficult enough to learn that, early on; to hide when needed and to be visible when summoned, and to let others do for her what she had grown up doing for herself, though in a much more rudimentary fashion. It had not taken her long to understand that they were the same as her, in some ways; pleasing the Professor when they could while working as efficiently as possible, but being dressed and fed and not having to wash her clothes never something she'd thought of as possible for her, nor supposed she would grow used to having, as stifling as it could be.

 

As much as she had returned having found no place for her outside; there was very little space left for her inside, particularly as the Professor had turned back to his original course and no longer pushed her to attend lessons, or even noticed that she did not. He would call her to fetch things, of course, and she was expected to dress for meals and be available to the rare, daring caller. It was as if, now that he had achieved something, he had no reason to do more than pat her on the head and send her off to play, like a child or a particularly loved pet.

Sometimes, when she remembered wishing for the Professor's head, she called herself a fool for wishing him so simple an end; he would say he had never hurt her, even with the posture collar and that horrid chair and the late nights, and for it she would wish him a cage. Though, of course, she suspected her point would be lost on him while his wardens suffered his temper, and the idea never lasted; he would be satisfied even in the Tower, confined to a single room, as long as he was fed and had his books or contraptions. He wouldn't know what it was like to be entirely self-sufficient to have that restriction chafe, every day filled with reminders of what things were or how they could be; he had always had someone to wait on him, had always had a place to live. It would not be that much of a change for him; people had lived there for many years, unhampered by the prison around them, a fact that meant that as comforting as the idea was, it always faded.

 

Still, being grateful just to have a place to stay, even if still felt not entirely her own, rankled in a way she'd longed to get away from; yet if not for him, she'd be cold, fighting for a space by the fire and lucky to have shelter, and would feel the same way.

 

**

 

There was little to say what precipitated the rants; it was well enough known that the Professor was just as likely to lose his temper over a misplaced canister as he was the direction of the wind, but it had always been smoothed over without (or around) her in some way. It had been after one such rant that Colonel Pickering had left, sending for his things only weeks later. Everyone had been more careful since then; even so, Eliza had returned from tea with Mrs Higgins to find Mrs Pierce in tears, something that hadn't even seemed possible, given how stoic and loyal the staff had seemed at first. She even caught herself questioning herself; it had been self-preservation to obey, at one point, and it felt no different now, when she took his tea into his office because the maid wouldn't dare, when she found his slippers behind the phonograph because he'd thrown them and forgotten. (If she had known, she thought, one of those thoughts women weren't meant to have, she would never have come, and never have known this world but for daydreams.)

"Eliza!" she heard, and then a crash. It was the latter that led her to set her flowers aside rather than make him wait; the sound had carried, and if she did not hasten, it would have been noticed.

"Eliza, what do you make of this?" he said, and thrust a paper at her, shaking it in her face until she took it. "Another book! A comprehensive guide in a single volume! Preposterous!"

Spared from reading the letter, which she recalled being delivered several days prior and forgotten in favour of capturing a particular Midlands subdialect, she waited for him to finish speaking; interrupting never helped, and he had not yet hinted at what she was meant to do. He had trapped her once, manoeuvred her into place and kept a hold on her, and she would not allow him to get her again; not now she understood, not now his mother had told her how to manage him, not now she had nowhere else to go.

"Impossible! Why, even an overview of just London would take years!"

She picked up the tea cart as he paced; the damage was limited and nothing had spilled, though Eliza suspected Mrs Pierce would replace the set rather than have one less saucer. "Why, I'd need a secretary to even have a chance of finishing it!"

"Shall I have more tea brought?" she said, carefully thinking through the words because experience had taught her that any mistake - a deliberately rebellious one, or a simple lapse - could draw his ire. He had grown less likely to notice them, or make more than a passing remark, but it was a risk she was unwilling to take, with him in this state.

"Eliza!" he said, again, but this time reaching for her, and clasping her shoulders as if she were one of his busts. It was not uncomfortable, but she wished it were, or that his touch was more gentle; she never could be sure, nor was she certain that she wanted to be. "It's about time you started paying me back for all those lessons I gave you."

There was a similar crash from outside the room and the sound of Mrs Pierce speaking, softly enough to be difficult to understand; Eliza imagined everyone listening at the door.

"That wasn't our agreement," she said. "You've been paid well enough for your time." It would have been easy to yell, to slip into her old ways of speaking, but it wouldn't do, not for a lady.

"Yes, yes," he said, as he waved his hands in front of his face. "Without me, you'd still be living in the street and most likely sleeping in whatever gutter wouldn't spit you back out."

"Without you I'd be earning my own living," she said. "Do you intend on paying me, the same as you would someone from a fancy school? As much as Mr Karpathy is paid?"

"I already pay you," he said, and then, "I'm not a miser, I'll have you know."

"Colonel Pickering pays my expenses," she said. "And if I'm to work for you, it will be on my terms, and not because you told me to. I'll tell Mrs Pierce to send someone with fresh tea." She felt giddy when she walked out on him for once, as light-headed as she'd been when he'd first been pleased with her, and free, as if she could keep walking on out the door and not feel the crippling weight of aimlessness bearing down on her.

"Ten shillings a week," he called after her. "And board, of course."

"I'll consider it," she said, though more for Mrs Pierce, who was hovering in the hall; it was an opportunity, one that could be altered but not denied. "Let him stew in it for a bit."

 

**

 

The problem, Eliza thought (and now, it seemed, she was allowed to have thoughts, as long as they were appropriate), was that nothing ever changed. She had never even thought of a secretary as something she could do; she woke up in the morning and sometimes wondered if she had slept too late to stake her corner, and remembered only when a small cough oriented her to her situation. She suspected, though, that most secretaries were not treated quite so cruelly.

The fourth time Professor Higgins ranted at her for not having memorised his customised and detailed phonetic shorthand because she had spent so long butchering it, she snapped back at him. She was immediately terrified, and in wonder at herself for even daring; she had always tried to keep her rage to herself, afraid of endangering her place and being left with nothing, and perhaps it had become uncontainable.

But the Professor just looked delighted. "Good, good! I knew you had a spine in you somewhere. Now, take this down," and he kept going as if he had not been interrupted at all.

It may have been Eliza's imagination that he was slightly less horrid, at times, after that.


End file.
